Recap: Power Rangers Megaforce, Episode 7 – “Do you see any tears?”

Needless to say, they have no effect on him. So they turn their attention to a younger kid as they tease him about his little pet. But Troy steps in and shoos them away again.

“Just because you’re bigger, doesn’t mean you can pick on him. Or even this bug. No matter how small, everything deserves respect.”

Up in space, Vrak tells Creepox how weak he must be for not being able to finish off the Red Ranger despite the opportunities. But Creepox says he’ll show them and the Rangers just how weak he is.

The bullies are taunting the kid again when Creepox arrives. While the kid hides behind a tree, Creepox tells the bullies he’ll make them cry to draw the Rangers out. As the bullies cower in fear, the nerdy kid comes out and tells Creepox to leave them alone.

“Just because you’re bigger, doesn’t mean you can pick on them!”

Creepox turns his attention to the kid, but he stands his ground.

“Little human, you’re either brave or a fool!”

Jake and Gia arrive just in time and Creepox takes the fight into a Tokyo warehouse.

“The strong take from the weak. That’s how it’s always been and how it always will be!”

Creepox easily takes care of Jake and Gia who forces them to demorph. Noah asks Gosei where the attack is, but he nor Tensou apparently have no freaking clue.

When they finally do find Jake and Gia, Troy tells Emma to stay with them as he and Noah go find Creepox.

Creepox sends fireballs into the city, blowing up dozens of buildings when Troy and Noah find him.

Creepox admits he was wiping the floor with Troy the last time they battled, but because he got cocky, gave Troy an opening. That won’t happen this time. Now, he’ll make sure the world will be taken over by Insectoids.

Troy and Noah morph and fire at Creepox, but it doesn’t faze him.

You crying yet? Creepox asks with both Troy and Noah down.
“See any tears?!”

Creepox is disappointed Troy hasn’t put up much of a fight, so he decides to hurl Meteor Shots at him. But Noah uses his Defense Stream Card to block the attack, but they both get thrown over the cliff and demorph.

Noah’s badly hurt. So Troy says he’ll take it from here. He’ll use Creepox’s rage and anger against him. He morphs, again, and he and Creepox battle.

“Cry for me! Do it! Beg for mercy.”
“TAKE A GOOD LOOK! YOU SEE ANY TEARS?!”

Troy flips himself up and instantly morphs. Vrak watches from the cliff.

Troy and Creepox both jump in the air, but it is Creepox that is hit.
Creepox explodes as Jake, Gia and Emma arrive.

Vrak calls Creepox a fool as he sends the Zombats to embiggen him.
The Rangers call on the Mecha or Mega or whateverzords as they jump into the rubble of the city to fight.

Creepox’s Galaxy Meteor Shots causes the Megazord to fall over. Troy calls Gosei for help. He’s unresponsive for a minute until he tells Troy not to doubt himself and tells them they are ready for a new power… the Ultra Gosei Great Megazord.

Gosei gives them the Hyper Gosei Great Cards to summon all the zords to form the Ultra Gosei Great Megazord (along with some strange computer-looking thing attaching to its back). They insert their Victory Charge Cards and finish off Creepox for good.

The Rangers decide to celebrate their mega-est Mega Win ever. Jake dances in the middle of the street. They go for froyo. Bullies and bullied are friendsies. Awkward compliments for Troy. Creepy smile from Troy.

Episode Thoughts
Well that was a very odd episode. It felt like a climax episode without any climax. Maybe because there really wasn’t any build up. Creepox hasn’t really done much to have this kind of decisive battle with Troy. It’s like they wanted some sort of Jayden-Decker kind of duel.

Anyway, it was all very underwhelming.

Then there was that whole pointless bully subplot. It wasn’t even helpful in the after school special/”The More You Know”-kind of way, I assume, they had envisioned. The worst part about that whole thing was the birth of Troy’s new slogan: “YOU SEE ANY TEARS!!!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!11!” It was okay the first time. Not so much the other 21 times.

How about Noah asking Troy how he could stay so calm while being bullied. It’s probably because Andrew Gray has been incredibly stiff. I don’t even think any of the Samurai Rangers were this lifeless. With Samurai, I know part of the stilted acting was the horrible writing. But no matter how lacking Troy’s backstory is right now, the scenes he has been given have been absolutely dull, due in no small part to the acting.

Other nitpicks? They’ve been confusing MECHAzord and MEGAzord a lot. For example, in this episode, Troy summons the “Gosei Great MECHAzord.” I’m pretty sure that doesn’t exist. There is definitely a “Gosei Great MEGAzord” though, which Gosei correctly pronounced.

I don’t even know. This whole zord prefix stuff has been unnecessarily complicated.

Megaforce had a fair amount of original footage. But the problem here though is the Goseiger episode was part of the build-up to the climax of the Warstar arc of the season. As well as to introduce the Hyper Gosei Great of course. Then they inserted scenes from a few episodes later.

But Megaforce took the first episode and used the same basic plot (the end of Creepox/Dereputa) without any of the background. They lifted Dereputa’s quick temper, but removed the part where he actually demands Buredoran to send the Bibi Bugs to embiggen him. Creepox was, as Vrak put it, a “fool” and presented as such. Sort of like a bumbling, hot tempered idiot.

Unlike Troy and Creepox, Alata and Dereputa did have a long history, going all the way back to the day the Tower of Heaven was destroyed. It was Dereputa who gave Alata the injury that made him collapse in the cockpit, not because he was sleepy like Troy was.

Seriously, an episode like this is a great example of how much better a leader and overall defender of Earth Alata is than Troy.

Megaforce used the huge attack on the city (by Dereputa AND Monsdrake) to create this sort of impending doom that fell flat. Even though in Goseiger, this type of carnage was standard at the beginning of the season.

There’s also the big introduction of Datas’ mecha form the previous episode. But since there’s no Datas in Megaforce, we just have to look and point at that strange classic video game machine flipped upside down on the back of the Megazord.

And speaking of, back to the criticisms of Megaforce, they go through the trouble of editing out Datas from the Megazord battle, the angel wings and in Samurai, would digitally edit in the American actors into Sentai footage. Yet, they can’t edit the Gosei Cards?

And about those Gosei Cards! The cards already say Hyper Gosei Great, but nooo, we’ll call it the ULTRA Gosei Great Megazord. Okay.

These are all little things, yet they add up, just like they did with Samurai. While Megaforce has been better overall, it’s still a far cry from being something worth calling “good” or even “good enough.”

One positive thing though, I did enjoy the lines:
“Little human, you’re either brave or a fool!”
and
“The strong take from the weak. That’s how it’s always been and how it always will be!”

Very political, that last one. lol

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